An Introduction To Life In The Jungle

Wednesday 11 October

Surprisingly I didn’t wake up until about 08.00 – and nearly everyone else was up and about, doing their early morning ablutions of face washing and teeth cleaning in the two sinks at the end of the carriage. The train was still chugging along though countryside that reminded me of the scenery on our way to Russia, except the trees here were bamboo, banana and palms, thick with vines and creepers, and occasional areas of open fields of rice. The first news of the morning was that the train would not arrive in Chiang Mai until midday - three hours late - due to the flooding. We had been told to be wary of the food served on the train, so breakfast for Colin consisted of half a packet of dewberry biscuits and for me, a packet of sweet basil crisps. Not quite what we’ve been used to, but washed down with water, filled a gap till we arrived.

We actually reached Chiang Mai slightly ahead of the revised schedule and by midday we were being transported in a song-thaew (a Koh Samui tut-tut) to the Suan Doi House Hotel, which turned out to be a small white, quaint hotel (reminded you of pictures of similar establishments from the days of the Empire), with plants almost taking over – not quite triffids, but the paths and gardens were bursting with greenery and flowers, and frogs continually croaked all around. Inside there were lots of half length bead curtains in the corridors that you were forever dodging under, and the wooden furniture seemed to serve as sleeping quarters for the many small cats that lived there. We had a room on the first floor (we had to dragg that case up the stairs again, as there was no lift) that had an old fashioned feel to it, with two single four-poster beds, draped in crocheted curtains, a television but no fridge. The bathroom was ‘wet’ – with the electric shower spraying all over the floor – but adequate.

After a much-needed shower we sorted our back-packs which would carry everything we needed for the next three days. It was then time to venture out to the local shopping centre, about ten minutes walk away. We stopped at KFC for a quick lunch (!), before browsing the four floors of shops. Our main priorities were some food for the trek (in case we didn’t like the food provided) long trousers and long-sleeved tops for me and a charger for Colin’s ‘stills’ camera, as his current one had decided to stop working in Bangkok (we think one of the wires must have broken at the connection point). I found my purchases in Marks and Spencer! The food consisted mainly of cereal bars and crisps found in the local supermarket, and a very helpful assistant in IT City (a camera/computer shop on the top floor) told us where to find the charger – a tut-tut ride away to the other side of town – didn’t we do this last Saturday for the computer? We found a friendly driver to take us to the shop (we only had the name of the shop, so hoped he knew the right street – which he did), and luckily they had just one charger left to suit Colin’s camera. This one will take only half the time that the previous one took to charge, so perhaps that’s a bonus. Another tut-tut ride back to the hotel and there was a short time left to write up the blog.

At 18.00 we met with our Trekking Leader – Anan – a tribal Thai, who was going to lead our party in the jungle over the next three days. He spoke very slowly in English, and very deliberately – we had the feeling he would be very strict with us and hoped he would be understanding while we trekked. He explained the programme of trekking and elephant riding and rafting, what we should take with us in our back-packs – completely different from what we had already packed! – we would have to unpack and try again. We learned all about how to remove leeches from our shoes and legs! and how the trekking route had had to be changed due to all the recent rain making many of the tracks too hazardous, or in some cases totally unusable as mudslides had destroyed them. Anan answered all our questions – particularly about creepy crawlies and leeches and was obviously very used to uninitiated trekkers.

Dinner was booked at a local restaurant with a theatre show of Thai traditional dances. The food was good – the deep fried chicken and the pork stew curry were excellent, and there was also a Thai version pork scratchings, some battered potato cubes, mexed vegetables, cruditie vegetables and ‘home made’ chilli sauce that was not too hot – and the waiters kept coming and filling all the dishes with more food than we could eat. The seven dances represented local culture including tea-pickers, peacocks, sword fighters and the drummers encouraging armies to fight. They were colourful and entertaining, and the musicians and the main man of the troupe were extremely enthusiastic – the man wielded ten sharp swords around his body in fantastic quick movements and balanced them on all parts of his body, while hopping around on one foot, and in the next dance banged a huge drum so loud that we all jumped and gasped – obviously to ensure we had not fallen asleep.

At the end of the show we had arranged to go to a night market, but by this time some of us were feeling the effects of sleeping a night on the train, and opted to return to the hotel. Colin and I spent the next hour resorting all our belongings, to repack our back-packs with everything Anan had told us we were likely to need on our expedition. I don’t think I have ever carried a back-pack for more than a couple of hours at a time, and definitely not uphill, so I don’t know how I am going to get on. The bags seem very heavy, but as with all trips, there’s so much you just must put in, and before you know it your bags are filled to capacity. Tomorrow will be yet another new experience in my 60th year. I published yesterday’s blog before I went to sleep, so that folks would know why we weren’t in contact. I was feeling quite exhausted by this stage, and we hadn’t even begun our exertions yet.